Last Licks

The next morning, Sunny got up earlier than usual. She came downstairs fully dressed and made a quick breakfast—somewhat hampered by Shadow, who insisted on rubbing his way around her ankles in a complex pattern. At last, however, Sunny managed to say good-bye to her dad and her cat and set off for the office. If winter threw ice and snow in a commuter’s way, summer brought tourists to clog the roads. When Sunny discovered that the reason traffic had slowed to a crawl up the hill above town was because some yo-yo was shooting pictures of the scenic vista, she was mightily tempted to see if a nudge from her Wrangler could send the tourist’s rental car down the rougher end of the slope.

Even with the delay, however, she got into the office ahead of her regular time. Sunny checked the answering machine and cranked up the computer. No smoke signals warning about business or Internet troubles. So she locked up the office again and went back to her SUV.

The trip to Bridgewater lived up to all the hype she wrote for the MAX tourism website—the countryside was rolling and verdant at this time of year, especially when she hit the country roads, and a clear sky spread above. She arrived at Bridgewater Hall, parked, and walked through the baronial entrance. The security guard didn’t live up to the grandeur this time around—he looked as if this was his first job out of high school. His uniform didn’t fit. Sticking up from the collar on a skinny stalk of a neck, his head looked like a particularly unlovely plant. Small, dull brown eyes barely looked at her as the guy said, “May I help you, ma’am?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Barnstable in Room 114.”

The guard needed to consult a separate binder to establish that such a patient was in residence. Then he finally pushed the sign-in book her way.

At last she headed down the hallway to the nurses’ station, though it was empty—as was Ollie’s room. An aide in blue surgical scrubs offered help. “Mr. Barnstable is in therapy. Go back to the desk and take the second hallway.”

Sunny followed the directions down a hall with a lot of wheelchairs—many folded together and apparently stored along the walls of the corridor. A few, though, were occupied. She quickly spotted Gardner Scatterwell beside an open door. Gardner waved her over. “Good to see you, Sunny.” Then he glanced up at the man standing behind his chair. “You’ve got to meet this delightful young woman, Alfred. Sunny, my nephew Alfred.”

“Alfred Scatterwell.” The guy had to be somewhere around Sunny’s age, and he looked like Gardner—sort of. He had the same beaky nose (though his was straight) and the same glassy blue eyes. He had more hair than his uncle, and it was darker, but he was already losing it. And where Gardner was portly, Alfred was tall and skinny, except for an outsized potbelly. It gave him the look of an anaconda working hard at digesting a swallowed sheep—even to the slightly dyspeptic expression on his face as they shook hands.

Dyspeptic . . . or distrustful?

“I’m trying to track down my boss,” Sunny explained. “He’s Gardner’s roommate.”

Alfred seemed to relax a little at that.

“Now you feel better?” Gardner’s voice held a faint mocking note. “He was afraid you’d turn out to be another unfortunate attachment to be mentioned in my will. Alfred is the family’s all-purpose heir. He’s determined to restore Grandfather Scatterwell’s fortune the old-fashioned way—by inheritance.”

Alfred’s face set in the pattern of someone who’d heard the same joke over and over and was long past finding it funny.

“Ah.” Sunny couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Time to change the subject. “Do you know where Ollie is?”

Gardner jerked a thumb at that doorway. “He’s in for PT. Some call it physical therapy, I call it painful torture. I’m waiting to see who’ll be putting me through my paces.”

Even as he spoke, a woman came out. “Mr. Scatterwell.”

She was not unattractive—the bone structure was there in her face, behind the wire-framed glasses she wore, but she wore no makeup and her thick gray-streaked brown hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail. Her figure was disguised by a bulky sweat suit, and she walked with a slight limp.

Gardner looked at the woman and recoiled theatrically. “Oh, no, it’s Elsa, the She-Wolf of Occupational Therapy! Take it easy on me, please, Elsa. I’m still recovering.”

Elsa gave a weary sigh. “You’ve been recovering for several months, Mr. Scatterwell. We should be seeing more results by now.”

That got a different reaction from the older man. “So you’ve been working with me for several months now? Which means you’ve been paid during that time—while I’ve been contributing very generously to your salary and all the others?”

“If you want to discuss administrative issues, you should speak to Dr. Reese.” The woman’s voice became so careful, it was toneless.